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The Destiny of Cuba: Congress

There was a good deal said in the American Congress and newspapers that was unworthy the nation--frantic demands for impossible things, clamors for executive action that would be not only unbecoming, but absurd; interpretations by statesmen of national reputation of international law, that would be suppressed by any enlightened committee presiding over a debate of college students. It was not our place, surely, to insist on action based upon the precedents of piracy to excuse a policy of filibustering. That there was something far more in this war than had been evident in former struggles, was manifest when the Havana despatches told of the steady and swift advance of Gomez and Maceo into the central and western provinces. This was not what was promised by the presence of the most distinguished of Spanish generals, backed by an army of 100,000 men. The Spanish official stories, meagre and colored as they were--as is the habit and flagrant sin of military bulletins--told enough to make known that there was at last a real uprising of the Cuban people, one that swept over the breadth and length of the Island, and in the fiery flood of which racial sensibilities, and the factions of men or politics, were submerged.

The return of Campos to Spain, discomfited and confessing failure, the friends of Spain panicky, and the Cubans exultant, appeared to announce the final failure of Spain to conquer Cuba. Then was visible the ancient bitterness of the Spaniard, his faith in the efficacy of severity, and the call for General Weyler to take command, because, in part by his friends and in part by his enemies, he had been reputed intelligent, energetic, vindictive and merciless. At this juncture I accepted a call to go to Cuba as a newspaper correspondent, and was provided with many letters of identification and endorsements, giving assurance of a considerate reception by the official class. A visit to Washington was valuable in the acquirement of the certain knowledge that whatever might be the lack of qualification in the proceedings Congress was disposed to initiate, the executive branch of the government was in action limited by lack of the authenticities for recognition or intervention. In Havana I found a group of representatives of the leading American journals, particularly those of New York, that are now more than ever searching the world for news. The correspondents were full of enterprise, courage, and spirit of adventure, flush with audacity, willing to risk life itself for "scoops," and armed with enormous letters of credit that they might on occasion use gold freely in news service, open or secret, and they have done more than all others to throw a fierce burning searchlight upon the bloody mysteries of Cuba in war, and the dismal oppressions of her people when their agitations are so far suppressed that the condition of feverish repose is called peace.